


shades are drawn

by tonyang (kurusui)



Category: PRISTIN (Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 20:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15781290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurusui/pseuds/tonyang
Summary: But the feeling of security is lost with such a distance.





	shades are drawn

 

 

 

When Nayoung gets sick in February, Yaebin brings the trashbin to her bed. The rough coughing noise is what startles her awake first, but then there’s the hint of something that sounds like a blocked nose. Yaebin reaches over to the light switch, feeling the wall for the moving part. Nayoung’s curled up in the corner, eyes red. Yaebin hasn’t seen her wear an oversized t-shirt to bed instead of proper pajamas for months.

Kindly, without words, Yaebin grabs the basket from its spot next to the door and carries it to Nayoung. “You don’t have to,” Nayoung says stiffly in reply. “I can walk to the bathroom myself.”

Yaebin blinks. “Oh.” In her other hand is a travel pack of 2-ply tissues. “It’s for this, not-”

Nayoung hurls into the trashcan.

 

 

 

(In the heat of the moment, Nayoung can never remember what words she’s supposed to say. Her first instincts are devoted to keeping calm and holding a steady voice. It leaves nothing for eloquency.

Behind her, Yaebin whispers a name. It sounds like she spoke it, however, because she stands centimeters to the microphone. Nayoung still doesn’t hear it.

Words fall out of her mouth slowly. Nayoung has focused her eyes on a dull spot, the top of the cameraman’s shoe in front of her. It’s not that she doesn’t want to lift her head, it’s that she can’t remember to.

“Thank you all again for this award,” she says at last, the first sentence that comes to her consciously. There is some finality injected that leads the crowd around her to clap loudly.

“Thank you very much everyone! We love you!” Yaebin’s hand grips the mic stand at the last moment before they walk off stage. They’re like little ducks, shuffling to the exit while Nayoung raises her wing to steer them in the right direction.

 

 

Later when she arrives home, Nayoung’s mother tells her to say thank you to Yaebin, on her behalf.

“Why?” Not said in opposition, but rather in pure confusion, it makes Nayoung’s mother laugh.

“I think her voice was louder than yours tonight.”)

 

 

 

Yaebin has to prioritize. It doesn’t smell that badly, for now, and in front of her Nayoung is trying to pull on a pair of rumpled jeans she must have tossed aside last night. Her toes only reach the knee length before she trips over and leans her body weight on Yaebin’s shoulder.

“I have to make dinner,” Nayoung mumbles, delirious.

“It’s five in the morning,” Yaebin says, gently. Nayoung allows herself to fall back into bed, guided by Yaebin’s hand. “Can you sleep?” she asks.

“If I tell myself to,” Nayoung answers into the crook of her elbow, breathing heavily. Yaebin watches sweat trail down the side of her face and stands up.

“I’m going to leave you alone for a few minutes. Wake Yewon if you need anything.” First she’ll get a wet cloth, find cold syrup, go dispose of the trash bag.

“Don’t want to.”

At this Yaebin has no choice but to turn around. Nayoung stares back, eyes wide open. Maybe it’s because of the eye mask she wears to sleep, but Yaebin can see the curl of her eyelashes.

“You don’t want... to wake Yewon up?” she asks slowly.

“Don’t wanna.”

What kills Yaebin is the charming way this filters into her ears, like they’re in the last five minutes of a 10pm drama, and all she’s looking for is an excuse not to leave. Nayoung can’t help it if she sounds like this, even though she looks like she’s on the edge of death.

“Then wait for me,” Yaebin says, and walks out of the room, flicking the light switch off, covering her ears tightly with her palms.

 

 

 

(On Nayoung’s birthday, she gets a single letter. First it was surprise cams, now it’s handwritten messages - the girls graduate from these rituals faster than she can say “you’ve grown up”. It’s what she’d like to tell them. Somehow it feels like there’s never time to.

The envelope is slipped under her door sometime between 3 and 7 in the morning. Nayoung finds it when she gets up for breakfast, but it wasn’t there when she went to sleep. There is a slight odor of burnt toast coming from out there, but she takes a sheet of looseleaf paper out and reads.

 

_December 18, 2018_

Dear Nayoung unnie,

Guess who? I’ve always wanted to pull one of these. I asked if anyone else wanted to do it with me, write you a letter, that is, but they all told me they’d written you a text, or told you in person. I’m sorry my xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx No spoilers! You won’t figure out who it is until the end. But I’m the only one who loves you enough to write by hand, you should know that ♡ Don’t look at the end until you reach the end.

(Nayoung’s eyes flit to the bottom of the paper and she laughs, and whispers sorry.)

I’m not sure what to say to you. Happy 24 years! It’s not that old, I promise! Thanks for being our leader and putting up with all of us. Thanks for being so brave and strong for us! Thank you for enduring when it was hard and you felt alone. I’m sorry you felt alone even when we were all with you.

I hope you have a great year ahead of you and that Pristin has a better 2019. Thanks for being our strength.

The truth is I was out at noraebang with my troublesome friends for too late and missed your midnight. I’m sorry, really sorry. Hope this kind of makes up for it.

Love you!!!

Kang Yaebin

 

Yewon starts shouting about the toast and asking for a newspaper to fan the smoke detector with. Nayoung is seconds from sprinting down the hall to start damage control.

“We don’t have newspapers in this house,” Yaebin says. But the sound of flapping magazines calms her heart.

Instead of sprinting, she can probably try more of a stroll. It is her birthday, after all.)

 

 

 

Yaebin rummages through the drawer next to the sink for the medicine box. What she’s looking for exactly, she’s not sure. Nayoung probably has a cold, but maybe a fever too. Is it okay to give her nighttime medicine when the sun is coming out? Shouldn’t Nayoung get some rest? Does Yaebin have the right to make that decision?

She breaks off a set of pills from a blister pack, tearing carefully at the perforation.

“What are you doing up?” a voice wants to know from behind her. Yaebin smiles.

“Ah, you scared me.” Minkyung pulls a bottle of lemon soda from the refrigerator and takes a drink. “Getting Nayoung unnie some medicine. But I might need some for myself, too,” Yaebin says. “Head hurts.”

“I think you might need to sleep,” Minkyung replies, while she picks up the box Yaebin set on the counter. “Multi-symptom?”

“I’m not sure what’s wrong with her.” Yaebin pours filtered water into a clear glass, finds a tray and a paper towel to supplement the washcloth she lifted from the bathroom.

“So you’re just giving her catch-all medicine?”

Yaebin snaps her head up. “Is there a problem with that?”

Minkyung has always been kind of sensitive when it comes to Nayoung. Defensive, probably, but definitely critical of everyone else that tries to get close. It’s something Yaebin has noticed over the years, especially when she’s involved. It’s like then, Yaebin really can’t do anything right.

“I just think it’s less effective than something targeted, that’s all,” Minkyung starts. “But I also wish you wouldn’t try to solve problems without knowing what’s wrong.  I can check on her.”

Yaebin looks at her. “It just seems kind of early to start a fuss, don’t you think?”

“Take a break,” Minkyung advises, at the risk of highlighting the disparity between their actions. “I think you need it.”

“You should take me dancing,” Yaebin suggests, without meaning it, “as my break. Would be fun.”

“Don’t try to be Nayoung,” Minkyung warns. Yaebin’s face falls.

“Nayoung unnie would never go out with you at the crack of dawn.” She grips the tray with shaky hands and walks back towards their room.

“You don’t know anything,” Minkyung whispers, when she thinks Yaebin is out of earshot. It was a bad judgment call.

 

 

 

(The first memory Yaebin has of fighting with Minkyung is also because of Nayoung.

It was a long time ago, so she can’t remember the details. Nayoung was biting her nails. The dance teacher stood next to her, pointing to various trainees in the room. It sounded like Nayoung was going to cry.

Yaebin reaches her hand out then. Across the room, Chwe Hansol pokes his head through the door, eyes darting around until he sees who he’s looking for. Yaebin makes eye contact. “Now?” she mouths. He nods.

Instead Yaebin marches up to Nayoung and their instructor. Before she can speak, Kim Minkyung covers her mouth with her sweating hand and fiercely apologizes to the teacher.

“Let’s go, Yaebin.” Minkyung’s fingers slide around her wrist and don’t let go. Hansol still holds the rear door open, and she gets shoved through the entryway. The hallway is so dimly lit and cold from air conditioning that it feels like she’s just been dropped into the outdoors on a January night.

“What the hell was that for!” Yaebin shouts when the door closes, ready to tear a fingernail to get out of Minkyung’s death grip. Luckily the music coming from the practice room is loud enough to mask her lack of civility.

Minkyung slows her voice deliberately. “Please stop causing trouble.”

“But-!”

“You don’t understand,” Minkyung continues. “Nayoung-”

“You’ve been here for like 6 months, what is it that you understand?” Yaebin returns. Silence.

Minkyung looks at the ground, expression steely. Then she goes back inside the room, slamming the door shut without a response.

Hansol is still standing there. “I’m sorry,” he offers. “I don’t really know what happened, but it sucks.”

Yaebin tries to laugh. “Let’s go practice. Just try not to be too much better than me today.”

 

Everything worked out in the end. But when she looks back on it, maybe it wasn’t because of Nayoung after all. Maybe it was deeper than that. Yaebin still doesn’t remember who apologized for that night first.)

 

 

 

When Yaebin opens the bedroom door, she lets the hallway light into the room. Nayoung is already asleep again. So Yaebin wipes her forehead with the cloth and wraps a clean plastic bag around the rim of their trash can. Right before climbing back into bed she realizes she’s forgotten to close the door, but once her fingers touch the handle Minkyung makes eye contact.

“I’ll leave it to you,” she says. Whatever Minkyung answers with is lost to her short term memory.

 

 

 

Yaebin doesn’t wake up the next morning. The time that Kyungwon shoves in her face via phone lockscreen reads _13:01_.

“You let me sleep in until 1?!”

Kyungwon laughs. “That’s not exactly what happened. At first it was kind of a game, seeing how long you’d stay knocked out even when everyone else was up. But then Nayoung unnie told us to leave you alone, and I forgot to check on you until now.”

Hearing the name shakes her awake. “Where’s Nayoung unnie?”

“School,” Kyungwon says. “Schedule later.”

Yaebin feels like she’s lost. The gap is too large. “Did you know she’s sick?”

“Sick?” Kyungwon’s nose kind of scrunches up, like she feels bad for her. “I think I heard something about that from Minkyung. I guess she was feeling under the weather this morning.”

“Was she okay? Did Minkyung take care of her?”

Kyungwon laughs at the sincerity in her voice, which kind of hurts. “I’m sure she took care of herself. It’s okay, she’s fine.”

“I just think,” Yaebin says, pausing to choose effectual words, “that Nayoung unnie is important, and thus, her health is also important.”

Kyungwon plays with the strands of her bangs. “Well. I don’t disagree.”

“Great.”

“But she must have been fine if she was able to do the dishes and make Minkyung cook breakfast for you.” Kyungwon gestures at the kitchen island with some self-satisfaction. A messy omelette is sitting on a white plate, covered in plastic wrap.

For some reason this makes her want to tear up. “That doesn’t mean she’s fine,” Yaebin insists. “Maybe it just means she’s working too hard.” She tears the plastic off and slides the plate into the microwave. “I can’t believe she would make me- us, worry like this.” Yaebin shakes the fork she’s holding in the air, and gives Kyungwon a look, waiting for a sign of agreement.

Kyungwon pats her on the shoulder sympathetically and laughs. “She took the medicine that you left by her bed. I threw away the wrapper.”

The microwave beeps. Yaebin stabs Minkyung’s omelette and chews while Kyungwon turns on the radio, dancing around the room.

 

 

 

(Nayoung is tired but not sleepy. The contrast to earlier that day hits her hard, when she was full of energy but still on the edge of fluttering eyelids on the drive home.

Scrolling endlessly on her phone, Nayoung can feel the light burning her eyes. From the bed next to her, Yaebin is hugging a bolster and absently staring outside the window. The moon is just a sliver tonight, and there are no streetlights on that side of the apartment, so the shades are raised.

“What are you doing?” Yaebin finally asks. She sits up on her mattress and leans forward, as if it would give her a better view of Nayoung’s screen. Nayoung can see these movements in the shadows out of peripheral vision.

“Trying to sleep,” she responds, still not looking up or away.

“I don’t think you’re trying very hard,” she says provokingly. Now Nayoung closes her eyes and when she opens them, the loop is broken. Yaebin’s smile looks a little like a flat line with little curves at the ends.

Painfully aware of her own position, Nayoung elects to change the subject. “What’s keeping _you_ up?”

If Yaebin is caught off guard, she never shows it. “Just thinking.”

“Cop out answer.”

“It’s true,” she says, shrugging. “But people - you,” she emphasizes pointedly, “only complain ‘bout that when they feel vulnerable about their own.”

Nayoung sighs. “I think I was close to falling asleep before you started talking to me.” Never mind that she feels like she just downed a cup of espresso.

“Wanna bet?” Yaebin laughs, almost too loud for the middle of the night, and Nayoung holds a finger to her lips. Yaebin recrosses her legs to keep her balance.

Kang Yaebin is capricious and bubbleheaded sometimes. And yet-

“Can I tell you a secret?” Nayoung asks. Maybe that’s what makes this so appealing.

Yaebin rolls over in her bed, head resting in her hands. “I’m listening.”

But the feeling of security is lost with such a distance. “Eunwoo and Yewon are here,” she says, stating the obvious.

“What do you want me to do?” Yaebin asks. Nayoung thinks she is so compliant, too innocent, always loyal.

“Just, come over here.” Yaebin’s blanket falls to the wayside. Her feet pad lightly on the hardwood flooring.

“What is it?” Nayoung, whose hands are clasped together still, feels warm arms around her, and a cheek resting against her shoulder.

And so she takes a deep breath. “The thing is that I-”

 

An hour later, Yaebin ends up falling asleep on the left side of her bed. Nayoung can’t say that she wasn’t expecting that, and neither can she say she didn’t want it.)

 

 

 

When Nayoung arrives home from her photoshoot, Yaebin is standing by the door.

“I waited for you,” she says abruptly. Nayoung is halfway through pulling her trenchcoat off, snow clinging to the sleeves.

“Welcome back, unnie!” Eunwoo screams from the living room. Nayoung replies with an acknowledging noise, and five seconds later the girls on the couch are cackling over some funny face Jieqiong makes.

Yaebin is standing like she’s anticipating something, but she’s not sure what. “Did you sleep well?” Nayoung asks nonchalantly.

Yaebin opens her mouth and then shuts it. “That’s- I’m supposed to ask that.”

“Too slow,” Nayoung says with a grin, stepping past the shoes at her feet. And the stone warms up.

It’s not ever really fair. From the start, Nayoung has the advantage. Even Minkyung and Kyungwon are ahead of her. Being on equal footing with Eunwoo and Jieqiong is hardly something to be happy about. And as a consequence of mathematics Yaebin will never catch up.

Being older means more experience, it means understanding everything better, it means -

It means taking on more -

Nayoung sits on the loveseat opposite Eunwoo and Jieqiong and Siyeon, wearing a blouse with ruffles and those jeans she left on the floor yesterday. Siyeon says it looks like she stepped out of the photoshoot like that, and Nayoung modestly shakes her head and laughs.

“Spilled some coffee on the corner of my sleeve,” she says, and if they look closely there remains a faint circular mark where the edge meets her wrist. It must have been time wasted, scrubbing with dedication in the bathroom sink. A bleach pen could fix that. “I kept my coat on at school.”

It means pretending everything is fine when it’s not.

Yaebin stands by the wall and Jieqiong has to yell at the other two girls to scoot over, make some room because _clearly_ Yaebin is afraid of Nayoung unnie for some reason. Siyeon sits on the armrest and dares Yaebin to sit down next to her.

Nayoung waves, the spot beside her empty.

Maybe it’s about being a better version of yourself, Yaebin thinks, as she sits down to Nayoung’s left. Siyeon gives a compulsory scowl before sliding back into her original seat. Pushing yourself further to fill a role that’s needed. Something that as someone younger inherently can’t be done.

Nayoung’s legs are raised onto the sofa, folded under her. The commercial break has just ended, so now they know which variety show the girls were watching.

“I feel much better,” she comments. Nayoung leans over and rests her head in the space between the cushion and Yaebin’s. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Yaebin says quietly. The laughs in the background fade away.

Maybe it means being the one to bridge the gap, even when it feels infinite.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> kindly leave a comment if you enjoyed! / twt [@haengseol](https://twitter.com/haengseol) / [@likewaterising](https://twitter.com/likewaterising)


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